


32 hours

by Lxghts



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Ant-Man (2015) Post-Credits Scene, Civil War (Marvel), M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-20
Updated: 2015-09-20
Packaged: 2018-04-22 15:05:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4839965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lxghts/pseuds/Lxghts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They find him.</p><p> </p>
            </blockquote>





	32 hours

There wasn't much Steve thought about. Eat, sleep, search & repeat. Daily, monthly, relentlessly searching for his past in the ruins of Hydra's toppled foundations. There wasn't room for much else.

There were clues. Clues that weren't physical. It was more of the fact that there were no clues. That's what confirmed Steve's suspicion more than anything. Every scorched building he and Sam had tumbled into: precariously empty. As if there wasn't anyone there in the first place. But he was too smart to know that wasn't true. Someone was there. There'd been someone responsible for that wreckage. Ghosts can disappear, but their presence lingers for however brief amount of time. So if no evidence was present, it meant someone knew to cover it up, someone who was good enough to cover it up. Someone who cared enough to. The biggest clue was left in the lack of clues. So he held onto that.

Natasha helped when she could. She seemed the most skeptical out of the four of them, absently chipping at her polished nails or averting her gaze whenever Steve brought up their search efforts. Fury helped (motives unknown). Sam helped because he knew what it was like to lose someone. Sam knew if it was the other way around, and Riley was still out there he'd be looking. And Steve thought--knew-- that he would help if Sam asked.

Nat and Fury aside, at the very least he had Sam and they had each other, their few resources and some salvaged tech. They had Steve's small band of avengers-in-training, which he'd never get involved in his search. But he kept them close, it was always a possibility and never off the table. Plans without backups at this point would prove far too risky.

There was nothing to directly or definitively tell him where Bucky was. It just evolved in the beginning from a steady stream of dead ends to a game of cat and mouse. They always showed up hours or days late at the doorsteps(more accurately, ashes) of known hydra facilities. It became a race to the wreckage of each newly destroyed base. Only Bucky wasn't their prey. They might've been chasing him, but he was holding all the cards. Probably watching them, which Steve believed almost as much as he felt. That tore him up more than anything. He held no malice in his heart for his suffering friend, but there was something aggravating, frustrating about the feeling of being so close and still not having the ability to bring him in from the cold.

So they chased him, but in all likelihood he was probably chasing them, too.

 

He got a call.

 

The ringing bled through the silent room until Steve found the energy to get up and answer. Sam was snoring on the bed next to him.

"Yeah?" He said, pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index.

"Factory in Dortmund, he's there. Sending the coordinates now." Fury's voice came through rushed.

They were on a train in 40 minutes.

They arrived 2 hours later.

The coordinates led to a inconspicuous building, with broken windows and older architecture. Graffiti spilled in from the outside walls, covering some doors and parts of the interior. They split up, moving throughout the large space with the same skepticism that accompanied every other dead end they ran into.

They worked their way to the basement.

Steve wanted to scream at Fury. He led them on a wild goose chase through Germany, of all places. He couldn't forget what had happened here. The people he saw die. At home he was distanced from it, being back was-- well, he was back. The war raged on even if it was buried 70 years ago.

Sam beckoned him from one of the rooms, his voice uncharacteristically loud given their usual discreet precautions. He followed the direction of his friends voice, sliding through a half opened door.

A machine sat in the center of the room, its metal oxidized and dust-covered. He followed his gaze down to a man bent over in discomfort. It was him. His metal arm sandwiched in the machine's vise-like component. His hair was draped over his face, sticking to the back of his neck with sweat and dirt. He adjusted himself stiffly.

They couldn't call Tony, with all his time and money and tech- the one most likely to be able to help them. The Accords prevented that. They needed to get help, though, and that's what they would do. Sam made a suggestion--maybe if they needed they could call this guy he knew-- and he agreed, because he was desperate and not ready to use their backup plan just yet.

He approached, crouching in front of the man.

  
"Buck, you know me?" He asked, even though the answer could still be 'No'. Even though he wasn't prepared for the answer to be 'No'.

The man met his eyes, tired and.. fearful? relieved? Confused? Hard to tell given their closeness.

"Your mom's name was Sarah." He said slowly, as if trying to grasp onto the words coming out of his mouth, still attempting to comprehend their significance as he spoke. "You used to wear newspapers," a semblance of a smile tugging at the corners of his lips, "in your shoes."

He had always hounded him for that.

_"Been doing it for as long as I can remember, Buck."_

_"Sure pal."_

He brushed his hair out of one corner of his face to look up at Steve expectantly. As if to say, 'That's all I have to offer'. There were other things he seemed itching to say, but whatever the urge it ebbed away while he studied Steve's face.

Steve wanted to grab him and hold him, both as a comfort and a reassurance that they were here, they were both real. They'd be ok.

Instead he placed his hand on Bucky's good shoulder with a light squeeze, his face drawn in a sad smile.

Sam cleared his throat from behind Steve, and they both shifted to look at him.

"How do we, uh. Ya know, get you out of that?" Sam asked.

A plaintive & tired half-shrug, "Don't know."

Steve straightened, moving to where the arm was pinned tightly in the vise. He got a grip on the top half. The veins in his neck throbbed dully. It didn't budge.

"Who put you in here?" Sam asked, moving closer to them.

 

"You don't want to know." He said, cradling his free arm to his body and curling in on himself. Maybe he was right, they didn't. Because Steve was already prepared to kill whoever put him here. He didn't want to know what they had done to him. He pulled at the device's clamp from a different position.

"How long have you been he-" Sam started to ask.

"Could use a little help, Sam."

He continued pulling, noticing Sam looking at Bucky with a 'Get-a-load-of-this-guy' face before grabbing it from the other side and lifting. They both pulled, grunting and expending most of their energy. The machine made a strange sound, like gears breaking, and they felt the solid piece give under their combined strength.

Bucky slid his arm out, catching himself exasperatedly on the bench he had been sitting against. He was stiff, like he hadn't been freed at all. Sam and Steve caught their breath, doubled over with exhaustion from the strain.

"32 hours." Bucky said, interrupting the gasping breaths that filled the room. "You asked how long."

They say nothing. 

He rotated his arm, testing his own soreness.

Steve walked up to him, smelling his foul clothes and taking in his ragged appearance fully. This man, his friend. As much as he searched for words, there weren't any. Nothing could make up for their 70 years apart. For all the blood and suffering, death and fighting. For the highway and the helicarrier. For everything that followed. So he used the only thing equivalent, that helped where words could not. Bucky stood, looking anxious and tired, eyes not quite meeting his. Steve pulled him in, wrapping his arms gently around the fabric of his shirt, blinking back and ignoring the hot burn in his throat. After a long moment he felt arms wrap around his waist.

"Im sorry, Steve." He says into Steve's ear. But he has nothing to be sorry for, so Steve squeezes him harder, afraid that if he lets go he'll wake up from this dream.

They stand like that for a while, holding on to each other because no words could come between 70 years of ice. They held each other like they had always done, when words were never enough. They held on for no other reason than that they could. And they did.

**Author's Note:**

> i listened to this while writing this idk https://soundcloud.com/itsallindie/mansionair-seasons-waiting-for-you


End file.
